!àáP face="Verdana" s�ÿü:REFUTATION OF THE ARMENIAN RESOLUTION ARTICLE BY ARTICLE-1Á

Turkey is concerned that the Armenian genocide resolution which has been submitted to the US House of Representatives several times in the past will pass due to Nancy Pelosi, the new Democratic speaker of the House.  However, I don’t think there is any major significance if the law is passed or not. Firstly, similar resolutions have already been passed in state senates.

&r pressure to say on April 24 that 1.5 million Armenians were murdered. U.S Republican and Democratic presidents have always used terms similar to the word “genocide” when speaking on April 24. I am not saying that Turkey should stop lobbying against the resolution. Of course, Turkey should fight against this unjust and biased legislation and try to prevent the genocide label from being attached to the nation. Otherwise, those Turkish children who read in textbooks that their ancestors were murderers will suffer an inferiority complex and will become asocial in the countries in which they live.

At the other end of the spectrum, the mentioned resolution that was submitted to the US House of Representatives is laden with incorrect historical information and material mistakes. It seems that those who drafted the resolution were not very concerned about the facts. It was prepared with the assumption that the representatives would approve whatever was submitted and calls on the US president to employ sensitivity to foreign politics regarding ethnic cleansing, human rights and the Armenian genocide. The president is also asked to declare April 24 a day to commemorate the “Armenian genocide.” Certainly this call is intended to hamper Turkey-US relations. So while the resolution lacks the authority to impose punitive sanctions, it is very important because it could prevent Turkish-US relations from moving forward in peace and cooperation. The resolution will increase Turkish opposition to America and will strike a blow to Turkish government efforts to mend relations between the two countries.

While the previous genocide resolutions had indicated that the genocide was committed by the Ottoman Empire and not the Republic of Turkey, the current one directly charges Turkey with being responsible for genocide. The third article was removed from the current resolution, which is why the history of the genocide was extended to 1923. The Armenian lobbyists have extended their claims of genocide because they want to hold the Turkish state responsible and punish Turkey for the goods and property that were confiscated. What’s worse is that the image of Turks in America will be damaged, and this could affect business and cultural relations between the two countries. Some intellectuals, writers and strategy experts say the US will not offend Turkey in any way until, at least, the problems in Iran and Iraq are resolved and do not expect the resolution to pass in the Senate. However, we should remember that in recent years the US has been guided by an unproductive and visionless administration. Unfortunately, the administration draws its strategy and road map based on the marginal groups of each country. Since the possibility exists for the US administration to err and become confused, it is very important that the American public and its administrative departments are informed of the half truths in the bill.

Below you will find an assessment of the mistakes in the mentioned bill.

(Article 1) The Armenian genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.

In the article under dispute, it was claimed that genocide was carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. We know that V. Dadrian and many other leading Armenian historians have claimed the loss of the Armenian life during World War I due to the actions of the Ottoman Empire was 1.5 million. Before we comment on these exaggerated figures, we must emphasize that the Ottoman Empire had exited the stage of history in 1923. This fact indicates that the Armenian lobby is directly targeting the Republic of Turkey and aims to keep Turkey from avoiding punishment for the refusal to acknowledge its heritage. As for the figures, we may state with certainty that the claimed number of Armenian victims is an exaggeration. First of all, many independent researchers have estimated that the Armenian population in 1914 ranged between 1,400,000 and1,700,000. Even such pro-Armenian scholars as Dr. Johannes Lepsius do not accept the figures asserted by the Patriarchate, at 2.2 million Armenian citizens in that area at that time, and instead calculated the Armenian population to be around 1,845,450 (Der Todesgang des Armenischen Volkes, Potsdam 1919, p. 308). There is not a single source that would indicate the population of the Ottoman Armenians was as high as 2 million. (See H. Özdemir and others. Armenians: Exile and Migration, Ankara, 2004, p.49-50.)

The claim that 1.5 million Armenians were killed is also a myth. This myth originated from the report of Leslie Davis, the US consul at Harput. He wrote on July 24, 1915 -- the 44th day after the order for deportation -- that “It is impossible to say how many Armenians have been killed, but it is estimated that the number is not far from a million” (NARA 867.4016/269). Even Dadrian vouches for 1 million survivors and estimates the number of Armenian victims at 1.1 million. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Armenian leader, Bogos Nubar Pasha, spoke about the deportation of 600-700,000 Armenians. In addition, the Patriarchate calculated in 1919 that the total number of Armenians living in Anatolia was 644,000. A document released by the League of Nations stated the number of Armenians in 1922 who originated from Turkey was 817,873 and states that “the total given does not include the able-bodied Armenians” who still lived in Turkey. (NARA 867.4016/816)  Last but not least, in a memorandum sent to English and French embassies by the Patriarchate in 1919, it claimed that “200,000 Armenians were buried alive or were drowned in Van Lake, the F?rat River and the Black Sea between 1914 and 1918.” (Report presented to the Preliminary Peace Conference by the Commission for the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on the Enforcement of Penalties, March 29, 1919). These figures clearly demonstrate that the Armenian historians have exaggerated the figures about the number of Armenian victims during the war.

(Article 2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing “a crime against humanity.”

In the second statement in the proposed resolution, the Allied statement of May 24, 1915 is mentioned, and it is asserted that the Ottoman Empire carried out genocide, although they had been warned before the deportation. The text of the resolution implies that the Ottoman Empire planned and launched a systematic campaign to annihilate the Armenians. It is true that there was such a statement made by the Allies; what is left out is the fact that the states that issued this statement were then at war with the Ottomans, and as we know now, had signed treaties amongst each other to divide the Ottoman Empire, which would complicate any claim they asserted about the Ottoman Empire. What is also striking is that these countries were overlooking their own “crimes against humanity.” For instance Russia was carrying out pogroms on the Jews in their country, and England had already deported citizens of German origin to concentration camps.

(Article 3) This joint statement stated “the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres.”

As is stated above, these statements were the propaganda of the Allies. As a matter of fact, the Ottoman Empire, in its reply to the statement issued by the Allies, stated that a massacre of the Armenians in the empire was out of the question. There was also a very interesting detail in the statement of the Ottoman Empire: The sources of these slanders were English and Russian consuls in Romania and Bulgaria. In fact, political propaganda offices for the Ta?naksutyun [Armenian armed gangs] were present in the capitals of those countries, and many reports about the massacres appearing in the “Blue Book” also originated from these offices.